Ruppersberger & Rogers Reintroduce Cybersecurity Bill to Protect American Economy

February 13, 2013 4:03 PM

(Washington, DC) – Today, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) re-introduced their bipartisan cyber threat information-sharing legislation. The bill, called the the "Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Protection Act," aims to help American businesses better protect their computer networks and corporate trade secrets from advanced cyber attacks.   The bill that was introduced today is identical to the legislation that passed the House of Representatives by a strong bipartisan vote in April 2012.   

This important legislation, which had 112 bipartisan cosponsors in the last Congress, will:
  • Allow the Federal government to provide classified cyber threat information to the private sector to help American companies better protect themselves from advanced cyber threats;  
  • Empower American businesses to share cyber threat information with others in the private sector and enable the private sector to share information with the government on a purely voluntary basis, all while providing strong protections for privacy and civil liberties; 
  • Provides liability protection for companies acting in good faith to protect their own networks or share threat information.  
This legislation was developed in close consultation with a broad range of private-sector companies, trade groups, privacy and civil liberties advocates as well as the Executive Branch.  
 
"American industry is under attack, costing our country and our economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs," Ranking Member Ruppersberger said. "We need to do everything we can to enable American companies to defend themselves against these devastating cyber attacks.  Our bill does just that by permitting the voluntary sharing of critical threat intelligence while preserving important civil liberties."
 
“This is clearly not a theoretical threat - the recent spike in advanced cyber attacks against the banks and newspapers makes that crystal clear," said Chairman Rogers. "American businesses are under siege. We need to provide American companies the information they need to better protect their networks from these dangerous cyber threats.  It is time to stop admiring this problem and deal with it immediately.  Congress urgently needs to pass our cyber threat information sharing bill to protect our national security, our economy, and U.S. jobs.”
 
The bill’s strong protections for privacy and civil liberties include:
  • Narrow definitions that permit only the voluntary sharing by the private sector of a limited category of information—cyber threat information—and only for cybersecurity purposes;  
  • Strict restrictions on the government’s use, retention, and searching of any data voluntarily shared by the private sector; 
  • Provisions permitting individuals to sue the government in federal court for violations of the bill’s privacy restrictions;
  • Requiring the independent Intelligence Community Inspector General to conduct a detailed review of the government’s use of any information voluntarily shared by the private sector, and provide an unclassified report to Congress; 
  • A sunset for the bill’s authorities in five years, requiring Congress to carefully review the use of the authorities provided under the legislation to determine whether they should be extended or modified.
 Steve Largent, President and CEO of CTIA, The Wireless Association said: “CTIA believes that enactment of legislation to facilitates the sharing of cyber-defense information between the federal government and the private sector, as well as among private sector entities in the most important step Congress can take to enhance America’s ability to defend against cyber attacks. The Wireless Association, thanks you for introducing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.” 
 
“This legislation addresses critical information-sharing needs, while providing the appropriate safeguards necessary for facilitating such sharing. As the number of threats and attacks has only increased, your legislation is needed even more urgently now than when it passed the House on a bipartisan vote last April,” said, Walter McCormick, Jr., President and CEO of US Telecom. 
 
By allowing the private sector to share cyber threat information, and employ classified information to protect its networks, this bill will harness private sector drive and innovation while also keeping the government out of the business of monitoring and guarding private sector networks.  
 
Please visit the House Intelligence Committee website to find supporting documents on this important legislation here.